Speaker 0 | 00:02.352

What I do is I create a stop point for them to get a nice clean break. And then we started on the podcast. So give me just one second here. No, I don’t want the transcription. It turns out automatically. OK. So create a break point. Welcome back to today’s episode of Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. I’m your host, Doug Kameen, and today I’m talking with Yash Murali, who is currently the Chief Technology Officer at Therabody. Welcome to the show, Yash.

Speaker 1 | 00:37.238

Thank you, Doug. Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Speaker 0 | 00:40.381

Yeah, so you’re on the West Coast, in San Diego, I think. We had a little conversation before we started on the recording of this here, but you’re… First of all, you’re in San Diego. It’s sunny. It’s warm. The rest of us here, we’re starting to get into the fall. It’s getting cooler here and stuff like that. What is it like there? Am I right that it’s sunny and warm there right now?

Speaker 1 | 01:04.900

It’s like the best place. I mean, I feel like I’ve lived across the country, like multiple places. But then San Diego, you can’t complain. It’s always 70s during the day and then 60s at night. So it’s like you can’t complain. It’s nice, bright and sunny, beautiful weather all year long. And same in like where my office is too in Los Angeles. It’s probably like very close to back in San Diego.

Speaker 0 | 01:28.782

So you move back and forth between, I mean, you live in San Diego, but your office, you have an office in Los Angeles. Do you have an office in San Diego too?

Speaker 1 | 01:35.487

No, our headquarters are based in Los Angeles. So I travel back and forth. So I work from home remotely a week and then I travel to the office like at least three times in a month. So I’m here.

Speaker 0 | 01:47.378

Okay, nice. So. Can you tell us a little bit about your role as Chief Technology Officer? So CTO and a CIO, and this is probably a great discussion to have set in the table here. There is a difference between the CTO role and the CIO role. Could you share with us what your perspective is on the differences between those roles?

Speaker 1 | 02:09.042

I think the CIO, at least in my opinion, I used to be a CIO and a CTO. So this one, I would say it’s a combination of the two. I’m more like a CIPO.

Speaker 0 | 02:18.072

That’s my current job.

Speaker 1 | 02:21.675

I’m currently a CITO by title myself. Yeah. So the CIO, I feel like, you know, brings value when it comes to, of course, technology related, but more like I always like they get perceived as like the back end side of people where they manage infrastructure, traditional IT systems and all that stuff. Yeah. I think the CTO, there’s also like the technology aspect of it where I’m in this role. I also like I’m involved in the. front end of the business, like e-commerce, mobile app, and also like, you know, how can I drive, how can I use technology to make a difference, to grow revenue, to drive growth in that type of initiative? So that’s where I feel maybe there’s subtle difference between what a CTO versus a CIO and at least my role here is.

Speaker 0 | 03:06.975

Yeah, I love thinking about like, for me, for me, this just came up at my, one of my executive team meetings at work where, not that my My peers don’t already know the distinct difference, but sometimes, you know, it comes up in a conversation that we’re having and stuff. And I was like, well, the CTO hat is more of a strategy hat, if you will. Like, I’m thinking about, I’m thinking about, like, you want to, or not you want to, but like, if this organization needs these tools or this has this goal, here’s the tools that can help with that. And if this group wants to solve this problem, I’m called in to help them sit and be like. Help me solve, help me figure out what’s going on here with this. But then on top of that, not just help them solve that problem and bring in like the technology or the tools that are there to bear on it, but to know how it fits into the larger strategy of what we’re doing. You know, like that’s the CTO hat to me.

Speaker 1 | 04:01.645

That’s absolutely right. I think I, you know, we have, I mean, of course, we have a seat at the table. I mean, we are here to provide value to the business. And a lot of times it’s like, hey, just suggesting tools is an option, but also like, you know, having been part of the strategy discussions on like, hey, how do we collectively use technology to drive growth? And it could be like providing, hey, as the new, this time around, it’s AI. Like, how do we use AI as an example to drive our business revenue? A lot of times our business users here, this, you know, of course, through their. peer networks and everything is like they hear all these buzzwords but they don’t understand like how it can be sort of harnessed and incorporated within our business processes and that’s where i feel like you know yeah we can come in and help uh you know train their thought process and like help them uh think differently so we can we can then go and execute come up with a strategy roadmap and then how we can execute this to help drive the business.

Speaker 0 | 05:05.460

Yeah. So let’s get real for a second here on AI, because I’m having this discussion too inside my organization. And we’re coming up with strategies to figure out how these tools are useful in our space, you know, because I think that’s the big thing. Like you see all this hype, there’s, you know, the hype is like, oh, look, every paralegal in the country is going to be replaced by AI, which I mean, hey, maybe that’s going to happen, but I don’t employ paralegals, you know, like our company, our company is not. full of paralegals our company is full of people to do other stuff same with yours so uh you know i’m just i just i’ll ask out of curiosity what things what what what tactics are you trying to use to help understand how these tools these new ai tools all of them collectively just the spectrum that you know and if you want to drive into a specific that’s fine too but like how do you figure out what how they’re useful for your organization so

Speaker 1 | 05:54.858

i i always feel like you know um whoever you talk to outside, like AI is being thrown around as if anything can be done with AI. I mean, I don’t think that’s true. I think you have to be a little more organized in the product and the way you approach the topic. And then the way I think about it is like we have internally, you know, as stewards of the business, we know, you know, how, where our gaps are in the business processes and then where AI may be applicable in how we can incorporate that in our business. So. I think one of the things I did was like, you know, I don’t have answers to everything. So I conducted an AI workshop internally where we invited all the business users from every group and just sat down and let’s just, you know, throw ideas, put ideas together. Let’s brainstorm on where we feel our biggest gaps are and where, based on your thought process, you feel AI may be applicable. So we basically came up with this laundry list of items where we felt, AI, hey, we could use AI. And then… we then go and curate that list and then come from like a list of 100 uh short like make it a list of 15 and then based on that like come to a list of top five items where we feel like the biggest bang for the buck where ai may be incorporated in our business and i think we are at a point where we have a very good understanding on just as an example like ai can be used you know your traditional productivity improvements like your co-pilots and your chat GPTs and stuff like that to take care of all the mundane work, meeting notes and all that type of activity. But then a little more from a revenue driving standpoint, how could you use it on your e-commerce site? How will you enrich your experience on the mobile app using AI? Think about those things. And now we have a list of initiatives where we feel we can apply AI. So now that was the first part, strategizing on how you use, how do you incorporate it. The second part is how do you execute on that. So now that we may need expertise or we may need industry experts to come and help us out, but that’s where we are currently. We can execute some of that internally, but then some of it we may need external help.

Speaker 0 | 08:11.218

Yeah, in my organization, so I’m in a human services field and what ends up happening for us is, I guess I get different runways. So we’re setting up a collaborative learning project. So we’re soliciting, we’re actually right on the cusp of actually putting out the solicitations as you and I are talking about this. But probably by the time it’s published, that’ll be out inside my company. But inviting members from the cross-section of our organization to sit for like, we’ll fund the tools and then we’ll create a collaborative set of sessions where people come together, they say, hey, I think I can use it for this. we’re going to fund it on their accounts, put Copilot on or other tools or whatever the case may be, and then get them together over the course of several months to talk through, like, what did you learn? Was it useful? Did it actually turn out that way for you? Like the way you talked about it or like, hey, I found this cool thing out and then they share that with the rest of the group and then we really take that as a learning and stuff like that. So like that’s the approach I’ve been taking. I mean, it dovetails very closely with the things that you’re talking about as well. I’m just trying to get people together and figure it out. Because it is. It’s so hard. The hype is that, I don’t even know what hyperbolic way to describe it. But essentially, it’s going to do everything for you, as you said. And it really isn’t. Really, these things are just add-ons for everything else that you currently do. Some better than others. And you really got to figure out where that is.

Speaker 1 | 09:42.500

And the key to it is you can do more with less. I think that’s the key. It’s not like, hey, it’s going to take away your job. But the thing is, you can do more with what you currently have. It’s a concept that people need to get in their mind. I mean, right now there’s so much stigma. It’s like, oh, it’s going to take my job. I mean, that’s not what it is for. It is to enhance your job so you can focus on higher value tasks and let AI handle all the low value tasks, which you don’t have time to get to, or it’s not adding as much value as what you’re here for.

Speaker 0 | 10:13.465

Yeah, absolutely. So just ask a little bit about your current role at Therabody. Can you tell us a little about what does Therabody do? What can you share with us? Tell us a little more.

Speaker 1 | 10:27.466

So to begin with, like Therabody is one of the, I mean, I feel like amongst all the companies I’ve worked at, it’s one of the great brands that are there. We specialize mainly in recovery products. Our biggest, our first, we are basically pioneers in what’s called percussive massage therapy, which is, if you’ve seen those, one of those triangular shaped massage guns. yeah it’s it’s we basically terabody is the inventor of that like so we invented that we we made the first prototype this was uh the company was formed in 2017 fairly young company and then um since then uh our founder uh who founded the company came up came up with this idea because he had met with this motorcycle accident and then he felt like hey i need something to relieve my he had pain in his lower back and then he needed something to relieve that pain without taking pain medication which is so essentially he came up with this idea it’s like and he was a he was a trained chiropractor so he came up with this idea it’s like hey why can’t i take this technique that i use and then uh convert that into a device and then from we became we launched the theragun which was our main marquee product and then from there we’ve now expanded to a a wide array of the over 100 products across various domains. So, but mainly around recovery. So that’s what Therabody does. We’re a recovery company, help various like different groups of segments of people with recovery. We just recently launched what’s called a beauty line. So it was geared towards athletes. Then we sort of expanded it to a broader audience now we have a separate beauty line to help uh with um you know like your your skin elements to it anyways that type of stuff so that’s what we uh in the background we are a traditional consumer electronics uh consumer

Speaker 0 | 12:36.079

goods company okay yeah so now so i’m thinking when i go to uh when i go to my physical therapist you know like hey you know my shoulders hurt this is a

Speaker 1 | 12:47.506

the therabody product is like that that thing that gun that they bring out that like it’s like punching you if you repeatedly you know has you know to help but like it’s a bam bam bam bam bam bam you know that that type of thing that is exactly right and then we have various side kinds of those i think depending on the like you know level of uh muscle engineering but essentially it’s just that what you’re doing yeah

Speaker 0 | 13:10.527

yeah now for me like i cannot help it

Speaker 1 | 13:13.390

like it tickles me every time when he does it even if he does it on the side of my arm i’m like dude like come on man so you wouldn’t be surprised like uh all the pro athletes uh swear by it they always carry one with them especially you know when you have a hard day of workout and all that stuff like so it relieves uh any muscular pains you have or even uh we have we uh we have this thing called uh jet boots which is one of our it’s when it’s a pneumatic compression boots which we we’ve had it for a while. So those are geared towards like runners or anyone who’s on their feet a lot. So people swear by it. And every marathons we have, you’ll see a lot of folks using it right after to recover from the marathon runs.

Speaker 0 | 14:00.705

So I’m going to dig back in your history a little bit so we can give our listeners a chance to understand a little bit about like how you became a leader, because you’ve been in the space, you’ve been a CIO, you’ve been a director of IT and CTO for. quite a long time and it’s a really well-known brands and companies out there um can you tell us a little bit about like your professional history like how did you how did we get to now with yash here like can you tell us tell us the story so so um i’m i mean i i when i came to the u.s i came here to study so i’m an electronics

Speaker 1 | 14:30.981

and computer science major i went to texas a&m uh and i grew up in austin by the way uh

Speaker 0 | 14:41.194

This is a long hard country for me. I know,

Speaker 1 | 14:43.659

right? Both great schools.

Speaker 0 | 14:47.987

They are both excellent schools. That is very true.

Speaker 1 | 14:51.890

When I graduated, I think my first… Since a kid, I was always drawn towards technology. I think that’s been my passion. That’s always more technology and problem solving. I come from a family of engineers. It was sort of ingrained in me. When I grew up, it became a thing like where it’s like for me, technology engineering was sort of the dream that I wanted to pursue. So when I came here, I… My first job, I started my career off as a data engineer, individual contributor, more towards coding. I learned programming, of course. I think that’s where I started. And then eventually, over a period of time, I had this. And I do it even today. I think one of the things I always do is never stop learning. Never stop where you are and think that it’s enough, especially in technology. I think we were talking earlier, things change so much. you have to stay in tune with what’s going on out there. So I somehow had that even when I started my career, I started off as a database developer, then I felt like I need to do more. Then I learned different tools, different platforms. Over a period of time, I grew, I basically broadened my skill set. Then from data engineering, I went to application development, which was a front-end. took over CRM applications, ERP applications, and then eventually from there took over infrastructure because I didn’t want to stop where I thought like, hey, you know, a lot of people, it’s like, oh, these many applications, I’m happy. I can just grow in that particular, you know, area or field. For me, it was more like, hey, how can I broaden my skillset even more? And that’s where I, you know, starting from data analytics, went to CRM. went to ERP, went to infrastructure. And then eventually I got my first break at Jenny Craig, where I became their head of technology, their VP of IT, where I oversaw the entire technology department, which was a fairly large department at that time. It was about 80 people. Yeah, we were a big company, predominantly retail, diet, health, and wellness-based company. And then over a period of time, that was my first private equity go around. So it was introduced to the private equity owners. And then I realized that I had this considered, I’ll call it a knack, because there’s a way you have to work when you’re with private equity. It’s very different than when you’re working in a corporate environment in a publicly traded company. Private equities are very fast paced. and very a lot of times when private equity gets in it’s a turnaround situation right like the companies are not doing well that’s why they’re being bought out so i felt like that’s where i found my niche where i feel i can go in and turn things around quickly and and you know make the company like eventually make the company healthy optimize make it efficient and then um of course uh you know the private equity company that’s very They are successful in their venture as well.

Speaker 0 | 18:18.067

Yeah, and that’s a great segue. So like, because we talked before we got on, we started our recording about, you’re really engaged in a lot of this private equity work right now and helping companies with turnarounds and other stuff like that. And it is super different to be like a technology person working in that space than it is in some of these others. My background is in corporate, some corporate, mostly nonprofit corporate. and government administration of IT. And that’s like the pacing is totally different in terms of how the expectations of results, the turnarounds, just even thinking about how you and I described our approaches to AI, I could think about the differences there. You’re like, hey, I could be in a focus group. We talked it through. We came up with some lists. We banged out some stuff that we were gonna do. I’m like, yeah, I’m doing a six month study. You know? You know, your company would be halfway to being sold by that time, you know?

Speaker 1 | 19:16.994

That’s so true. And sort of somewhere in me, I enjoy the fast pace, quick decision making, because a lot of times you have to be very creative and it challenges me too. And I would say, like, going back to, like, the analogy, like, you know, since I was a kid, like, you know, the problem solving aspect, there’s a, like I said, like, when you’re in a turnaround situation, there’s a lot of challenges. that you’ve got to overcome. And part of it, like when I look back, I feel like, yeah, I think that’s what I enjoy, you know, solving problems and helping these companies that are… and and you know making making it making it a successful venture um not just for and also party it and a lot of these are like these companies that are going through the situation are like great brands that require to be you know that that need to be out there uh so anyways i think preserving the brands preserving um the culture while making these turnaround situations i think while making the change or shift in culture i think it’s it’s what i feel like i’m

Speaker 0 | 20:21.978

at least over a period of years i feel i’m good at it now so this is this tees up some great questions about leadership and what’s important and what’s important to you in these spaces because many of the people and i in the interviews that i’ve done i’m sure we’ve had you know we’ve we’re there’s like 300 episodes on the podcast so i’m sure we’ve talked to people who’ve been involved in private equity at different intervals but um i i know when i’ve done my you know my interviews with other folks that’s an infrequent you know uh breaded and knowing that there’s such a difference there, what is the leadership difference that you see? So I’ll ask a two-sided question, maybe I’ll just tee it up here. One is what’s different in the leadership in the private equity space and with the pacing and things like that? And then two, what leadership skills and what pieces do you focus on to build great teams in that type of environment?

Speaker 1 | 21:11.799

Got it. So I think from a leadership standpoint, what makes my job easier even though the situation that you’re in is a tough one, is that you have primarily two goals. One is you have to grow the revenue. Second is your reduced costs. A lot of times companies, it’s out of balance. That’s why they’re in the situation they are. So for me, I think from a, excuse me, from a leadership standpoint, it’s very easy for me to communicate goals to my team. It’s like anything that we do. It has to help drive business or help manage or make us efficient. So one of the things, as long as we are aligned with those two main objectives, I think we are in good shape. So I think that’s, I would say, like the biggest difference between. The third thing is like if we have time from those two is like, hey, how do we add these? How do we enrich our business? How do we add value? How do we do all these other great things that we want to do to improve our technology stack? I think those would be like the immediate third pillar, but always the driving factors are how do we grow our revenue and how do we make us efficient from a process as procedures? Are we, is there a waste stage? How do we make us, how do we reduce that, that type of stuff? The second part to your question was like, you know, how do you build teams to support that? I, I, I’m a big believer that your team has to be, I’m also a very transparent leader. I don’t like to hold anything. Like, you know, I feel like whatever I know, I share with my team. So anything that, and it doesn’t matter, sensitive or not, I feel like the team deserves to know, good or bad. So I always, like, so that’s one thing I employ with my teams, where I feel like I gain their trust. I mean, I have trust within my team, where their teams trust me, and I trust their ability to be able to execute where we would like to be. So the… I was about to say, so the teams, like for any, the situation, especially if it’s a turnaround situation, you know, you have to have alignment within your team. There’s no way around it because we don’t have that time or we don’t have any room for any, you know, any drama, so to speak. Like, you know, it’s like everybody has to be aligned. Everybody has to be focused because we have to execute. If we don’t. then the company will be in deeper trouble than it is currently. So, so it’s, it’s, so I look at like, in my team, I look at like, hey, are all the team members on my team aligned with our objectives, and then are rallying with us together, good or bad? Like we like and they’re my, I’ve done my part, I’ve shared my pieces of information with you, this is the current situation. And this is what we need to do to execute. And if they’re aligned, great. if they’re not aligned maybe this is not this this venture is not for that and more than happy to provide recommendations and if they’re looking for jobs you know i mean it’s it it’s okay okay to be it’s it’s it hurts the company to have an unhappy employee than to have lesser of happy employees i feel so i think i would say like those were like my two two two pieces of um the way at least i build my teams make sure like everyone who is on there is aligned is on is in there with you for the ride and then the other one is like you know just sharing my very high level objectives and of course like that trickles down into tactical stuff like lower level objectives by depending on what team they are in i think it’s it’s interesting you shared and i would call it it’s like a different version of of a of a tenant

Speaker 0 | 25:08.259

that i always follow which is that i ask my staff to be honest with me because i’ll be honest with them and what i mean by that is like i mean like really honest like hey look if you’re thinking about having getting looking for another job, tell me, I’m not going to like, be mad at you. I’m not going to be upset. If your future is not here. I understand that. And I’m here to help you build that future to like, we’re, you know, like, because that that usually comes back to help you at some point, you know, at some point, you’re like, you know, I just had a situation where a gentleman who he worked on my team almost 20 years ago, at the beginning of his career, He was he started, you know, into my support. He moved on to other roles. And, you know, I’ve connected with him on LinkedIn and some other places. So, you know, here in our community is a little smaller here where I live. So I had more contact with him. But then, you know, like six, seven months ago, the company he was at had a downsizing and he got he got laid off. You know, he got pushed out. And I knew that in one of my old roles, they were looking for a network admin. And he happens to have network admin. experience, you know, and put the two together and stuff like that. So like, by, even though he left, you know, years ago from the organization that I was at, in that team, he moved on to a better opportunity. He was open about the fact that he was looking and everything else, like that came around to help him in the long run. And you know, if something happens where there’s other leaders or other things like that, like those things always, to me, they always pay dividends. And that usually results in a team that’s better. They’re better aligned to what I want to see and the performance I want out of them because they’re they feel like they could be open and the people will self-select out that need to go you know like if you know because like and I don’t mean that in like a super negative way but if they’re not happy like if they’re not happy we can’t make them happy then

Speaker 1 | 27:04.654

let’s find a way to get them happy and even if that is to make them happy somewhere else and I totally agree I think like so you know I as a leader I feel like you know one of at least one of my like roles is to ensure like the team is the best version of themselves. What can I do to ensure that they are, I can provide them with opportunities to grow. Maybe even if it’s not vertical growth, if it’s horizontal growth, like, you know, broaden their skills. So essentially, like, what I’m doing is making them marketable in the industry so they can go find another job. That’s essentially what, like, my, but then I think that I feel is so satisfying to me if they actually truly do, like, and I have, like, tons of examples. Like, I’ve worked with, to to to somewhat to what you just shared like so i had um 10 years ago i’d worked with someone uh on my team who decided to pursue other opportunities we always stayed in touch like even today i feel so happy they’re doing so much so well in their careers and i feel like a lot of it is because you know because like they were they were open to like taking on more and going and finding like better opportunities than what maybe I could be able to provide them back then. But who’s to say? Like, if something comes up, you know, those are the first people I would go and ask for, like, hey, are you guys looking for something? You know, because I know that I have that relationship with them.

Speaker 0 | 28:34.523

So this may be a question you might have to sit and think about, but you may not. So when people are in their journey, from being a contributor to being a leader in in the space of whatever space they’re in whether it’s it or any other things usually there’s a time you could put your finger on where you’re like you know what that was when i realized that i was the leader and that i had to execute as a leader and like it was you know it’s like an event a project this like one day when i was like oh my god like i’m the one they’re all looking at or whatever the case may be like what was that for you Like, how did that come about?

Speaker 1 | 29:17.680

Do you think about that? I mean, I think, like, so I think, I would say, like, you know, hindsight’s always 20-20. Like, you know, when you look back, it’s like, oh, yeah, that point in my life. Like, so I feel, I would say it was even before I started working. I feel like maybe there’s, like, a small leadership glimpse I can, I used to be a competitive table tennis player. Oh.

Speaker 0 | 29:42.238

This is gonna get into the things people didn’t know about you part of the interview, but now we’re gonna preview that

Speaker 1 | 29:50.350

So say I’m back home like even like I still play but not as much But I used to play a lot when I was when I was younger back in my college days school days.

Speaker 0 | 30:00.442

So you can still smoke all of us is what you’re saying.

Speaker 1 | 30:07.008

Maybe but like I haven’t picked up a paddle in a while so it’s uh it may take up so take me some time to to get warmed up. My I think it was like one of those times when I we were competing in a tournament and I was in my eighth grade I believe like it was very I was very young eighth or ninth grade I don’t know something like that I was in school. yeah there were a time where like you know it just felt like it was a group it was what we call a team event so you know if one person wins the team doesn’t win so everybody has to win certain time to beat their own individual so i i feel it was once where i don’t know i was still young but i i took the time to sit down and coach and train people and maybe that was my my brief clips into leadership like where being even though it was in my eighth grade i had this thing in me where i felt I was a good player and I felt like hey if I could impart this knowledge to these people, like to my team, maybe they can do better than what they’re doing now. I think that was like the start I would say like my brief glimpse of leadership but then eventually once you start working there were times where I felt like guys like I feel like I know what I can do like I mean if I can take my skills and distribute it amongst like 10 other people. you know the team could do so much better so much more um and i think that sort of happened i would say like sometime when i started working at uh jenny craig or maybe a little before that uh where where i had that i would say those were probably the two turning points in my life where i felt i have a bit of leadership in me and then eventually uh when i started seeing results of that and it it and then i felt more and more satisfied doing that and then eventually uh you know, develop them to who I am today. And I still use those leadership principles, making sure the team’s happy, ensuring everyone’s successful, your employees are happy. I think those are sort of basics that I still follow. It doesn’t matter, like company, whatever company you’re in, I think those principles always you take with you.

Speaker 0 | 32:17.535

So, so I’ll pick a different. fun topic because we talked about your table tennis career so that’s that is definitely something that people would not expect that is an awesome story so i’m glad you shared that thank you uh star wars or star trek or neither uh you know people ask me this and i am neither

Speaker 1 | 32:38.345

i haven’t seen any of the star wars or yes and my team members give me a hard time for this like how can you be happy and i would see either one of them oh my god it just just never happened before

Speaker 0 | 32:51.176

uh but if i watch both i would probably i don’t know i i like movies in general so i would probably watch all of them yeah yeah there’s i was so my my older son well both my sons watch star trek with me i’m a star trek person more than star wars person they’re both good before i get before we you know get flamed on the on the internet here but the my uh my son my older son is very much into watching so he wanted you know most nights of the week he’s like hey can we watch we watch an episode we’re working our way through um through Star Trek The Next Generation currently. And the amount of… There was a graphic I saw a couple months ago. The amount of content that’s available in Star Trek, because it was a TV show that was produced weekly, more than a movie, a set of movies first, there’s almost like a thousand hours of content to consume in the Star Trek universe versus something like… you know i don’t like like 150 or 200 hours worth of content to consume in the star wars universe right now like like just just it’s it’s like an order of magnitude different because of of just the way they were produced you know star wars was just was movies movies movies and then only recently have they started doing some of these series uh in the last you know five to ten years and stuff like that but uh but yeah like i don’t know but it’s funny you mentioned about being neither my i get this from my wife sometimes too because she’ll be like hey you watched this movie and i’ll be like no i haven’t seen that movie and she’s like what how are you alive in the 1980s like how are you it seems like i have a lot of catching up to do like 1150 like there’s a lot of hours that i need to catch up on seems like yeah if you’re gonna watch the star trek universe you definitely make it a commitment if you’re gonna get through it all that’s for sure and it’s good like there was this is so see now i’m just gonna sell you on star trek for a few minutes but you So, like, certain shows that were not, they were less popular when they came out, upon rewatch and, like, popular. understanding, revisiting of them, like Star Trek Enterprise, which was a series that showed up in the early 2000s that had Scott Bakula, who is best known as the guy from the TV show Quantum Leap in the 1990s. And that show at the time was less popular. It only lasted five seasons instead of seven like the other ones, like The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager. But in some of it, it was… like at the time it was like, eh, this isn’t the same story or it’s a rehash of the original star Trek and just told it a different way or whatever the case may be. But when I rewatched it, I was like, man, these stories are good. And like, there’s been more recent, like contemporary contemporaneous commentary, or I’m talking about contemporaneous contemporary commentary to, to look at that and like reflect and be like, this was, this was quite good. Even, you know, it holds up well, I guess over time.

Speaker 1 | 35:50.787

Got it.

Speaker 0 | 35:51.556

like the stories and stuff like that so so there you go like like if you if you got a spare thousand hours in your life you can go watch all the star trek universe i i have to start like right now yeah you could you could judge for yourself i guess after you’re done uh so just uh coming back to the leadership aspects here of the uh the podcast and we’re you know we’re kind of coming up on the end of our episode today. What advice do you have to give to people who are either coming up or other leaders in the space and things like that? And I want to frame this slightly. Being in private equity, you see a lot of companies, you’re, you know, we didn’t talk deeply about this, but I know this because we talked a little before we got on the episode here. You know, you’re, I think it’s an operating advisor. Is that what it is? So your job is to go in. and give strategic advice to companies in your private equity firms are looking at either acquiring or part of their portfolio and stuff like that. So you are constantly interfacing with people and having to give them advice about leadership, about strategy, about execution and stuff like that. So love to hear some thoughts from you about like what advice you would give to people.

Speaker 1 | 37:07.440

So I would say, you know, you know, every company is different. So you always go in with an open mind. You know, a lot of companies are very mature. Some companies are still growing or budding in their processes and just in their growth process. So I would say you should, step one as a technologist, always stay close to technology. Keep learning, keep growing. And then when you go in, keep an open mind. Think of it as a blank canvas and think of it as if you did not have anything. How would you approach this implementing technology here? in a specific company or just in general don’t go base with this bias in your mind that hey i need to go with a certain platform or certain tool like just because you have expertise with it every company is different as i said like you know there doesn’t have to be the most expensive tool that needs to go in there it has to be the right fit with the organization so that i would say like it’s one of the key aspects of being in and of people interact with so many different companies you know your your approach has to be catered to what the company needs not based on what you know so the i would say the second thing is like you know hard work it’s all hard work you just you know elbow grease get in there like doesn’t matter like big or small tasks like you know doesn’t matter what title you have to be in there with the team uh because the company needs it especially in a private equity uh backed companies, every company needs your help. Doesn’t matter how big or small the task is. So it doesn’t matter if you have a team of 80 or 100 or five people, you just go in and then sit down with them. And that also makes them feel that a leader is involved in problem solving with them and not just they’re left by themselves to fend for themselves. I think that would say those would be the top two things that come to mind, never stop learning, ensure. You’re there to help and support in however shape or form the company needs you.

Speaker 0 | 39:15.115

Thanks. Great. Thank you. Yash, thank you so much for investing your time today on the podcast.

Speaker 1 | 39:23.559

Thank you so much for having me. Again, I enjoyed this conversation, Dak. I appreciate it.

Speaker 0 | 39:29.062

That’s a wrap on today’s episode of Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. I’m Doug Kameen, and we look forward to coming to you on our next episode. And that’s it. Awesome.

Speaker 1 | 39:41.731

It was great.

Speaker 0 | 39:42.952

Yeah, it was a great conversation. I appreciate your I appreciate your insights. And, you know, the there’s just a like getting that like different viewpoint on different things is awesome.

Speaker 1 | 39:54.558

So you said, yeah, I mean, you’re currently a CIO.

Speaker 0 | 40:00.703

So I’m the chief information and technology officer for a mental and behavioral health nonprofit in Rochester, New York, called Coordinated Care Services, Inc. So we’re we’re about let’s see, we’re about a little shy of 50 million a year in revenue. And we have about 500 employees. The organization, most of our business is in what we call program management, which is where we go in and we help like counties and municipal governments run their mental health departments in their areas here in New York State. And then we have like a multimillion dollar management consulting practice as well. So we’re out there with like with data science work. We work with the state of New York. We run statewide programs in the mental health space. So a lot of like it dovetails, it parallels a lot of the wellness space that you’re in. So like we help with, we run New York State’s Trauma Informed Network and Resource Center. So we’re one of the progenitors of trauma responsive and trauma informed care in the mental health space. And the work that we do is actually slowly spreading nationally. Like we’ve talked to a couple other states where we’re executing some things that we have in New Jersey and other places like that. So yeah, that’s my day job. Previously, I was CIO of a couple of… Like… municipal counties for 10 years and i was in the id consulting biz for a while and stuff like that so yeah and then and then i’m yeah i mentioned i was on the advisory council for aaron but i’m also a um i’m a audit committee chairman for a large one of the largest credit unions in the country based in here in upstate new york uh so i’ve been been that for a long time too so yeah

Speaker 1 | 41:36.967

yeah yeah go ahead there’s like two companies before uh my role was very similar to like so i used to be the cto of a company called behavior frontiers They predominantly, it was a healthcare company providing services for kids with autism.

Speaker 0 | 41:52.040

Oh, okay.

Speaker 1 | 41:53.441

So yeah, very fulfilling. Like I used to love listening to success stories from parents and like how we help their kids. And you know, those are the moments we look for, I guess, like, you know, how technology, how we use technology to help. So we, so part of my responsibility there was to, we had a, I mean, apart from all the things that we do. traditional enterprise applications and cyber security and all that stuff we had a software custom software that we built which captured interactions of what we call like the technicians with along like with the kids so every time they met the kid and had interactions all that was captured within the software eventually it had enough intelligence built based on the data it had uh to tell uh to predict an outcome of uh you know if this kid had this therapy provided for these many hours like

Speaker 0 | 42:43.382

by this time this kid will start like you know seeing these type of results so i mean that was very very fulfilling so anyways i think that that’s yeah that’s pretty cool like we have we have something i don’t it’s not similar but in a in a parallel way so like we have this tool in the trauma responsive and trauma informed space that’s called trust so it’s a survey tool that you know we we own the the the ip that’s the rubrics behind it and how it helps you know to hear you but you can you release it the organizations pay us to take the survey and then it comes with some supports from our staff based on the survey response it gives you you know like steers and helps shape your um you know your trauma responsive practices helps you on the journey to becoming more trauma responsive in your organization and trauma understanding and things like that so so yeah like that’s a that’s a proprietary tool that we’ve developed that we’re steadily working on rolling out to other businesses and turning it into a bit of a business model of its own right too exactly i think the same plan was here to demand be able to eventually provide that as a service to other other companies who provide similar type of therapy that type of uh but yeah it was good i i enjoyed truly enjoyed my conversation and you know thank you so much for having me yeah absolutely absolutely yeah this has been a great conversation i’d love to be able to connect on linkedin and i can you know give you a heads up like when your episode comes up to be released and stuff i think it’ll be a pretty short time period i haven’t looked at the you the calendar of who’s scheduled at this point but like as i mentioned there’s a summer wound down they kind of burned through the episodes that we had had recorded so now they’re slowly building them back up um but but yeah like uh you know love to keep connected and uh you know just share updates and things that are going on likewise

Speaker 1 | 44:29.722

likewise for sure like and if you’re ever in san diego next please let me know would love to catch up in person yeah yeah absolutely yeah yeah and i apologize like last week you I had to reschedule our call. I had like this, even now I have this lingering cough. I have a two year old at home and he brings back a whole bunch of stuff from daycare.

Speaker 0 | 44:49.748

Oh yeah. Yeah, I still school started. So for us school starts after Labor Day. And, you know, so I have a 10 year old and a seven year old, and they like they after the first week after school starts so last week I also had a bit of a cough myself I was I was, I was okay enough that I was still going to go through with the doing an interview but I am much better than I was last week.

Speaker 1 | 45:14.563

Yeah, I know it’s crazy and it’s been like saying so I may need to go get some my get my.

Speaker 0 | 45:20.176

tea with some honey in it and hopefully that helps suit it a bit yeah right i appreciate the conversation and you’re taking you thank you for investing the time today and likewise likewise very enjoyed my conversation today thank you thank you guys sir happy sir okay bye bye